North Korean Defectors Recount Ordeals

A handful of North Korean defectors are publishing their memoirs this summer. Among the harrowing accounts is ‘The Girl With Seven Names,’ by Hyeonseo Lee, who walked out of the country when she was 17

SEOUL— Hyeonseo Lee didn’t escape from North Korea because she was starving, in prison or physically abused like many other defectors. Her family was relatively wealthy and favorably positioned in “songbun”—North Korea’s caste system that ranks citizens by how loyal their forebears were to the regime.

But like other North Koreans, Ms. Lee says she knew she faced a life of limited opportunity and constant surveillance. As a child she was instructed to revere the leadership and resent the U.S. for the hardship she was told it had imposed on her country.

The flurry of books in part reflects greater international interest in defectors’ stories following the U.N. report, said Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea, a nongovernmental organization that supports North Korean refugees.

Growing up beside a river that divides North Korea and China, Ms. Lee could see neon signs on the opposite side while her city, Hyesan, lay in darkness at night. The lights represented possibilities. A friend suggested they cross over.

One night in 1997, as famine swept North Korea, the 17-year-old Ms. Lee walked across the frozen river. She had planned to be gone for a few days but instead began a journey to South Korea that took several years. Ms. Lee, who lives in Seoul, chronicles the experience in “The Girl With Seven Names,” which HarperCollins will publish next month. News Corp., owner of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, also owns HarperCollins.

Escapees’ tales of their lives in North Korea have drawn scrutiny after a high-profile defector this year revised parts of his story, which was told in the 2012 best seller “Escape from Camp 14.” Shin Dong-hyuk, who was born in one of North Korea’s most brutal prison camps, said in January that he had misled his co-author about spending all his life in that camp. In his revised story he said he had spent some time in a less-notorious camp.

Human-rights activists said trauma can lead to inaccuracies in escapees’ accounts. Some also may exaggerate their stories for publicity, said activists and defectors. There often is no way to confirm the recollections.

Ms. Lee says it was important for her to be accurate, even if her story doesn’t rivet readers like others’ tales of starvation and brutality. In China, Ms. Lee was arrested for being in the country illegally but released after tricking the police into believing she was Chinese and not North Korean. When trying to get her brother out of North Korea, she was held hostage by a gang in China and held until she paid them—with money from a relative—to let her go.

Escapees also must decide what to leave out from their stories to protect family and friends still in North Korea. In recent months Pyongyang has intensified its propaganda against escapees and targeted those whom they leave behind.

After her escape, Ms. Lee said she returned to the North Korean border to guide her mother and brother through China and eventually into South Korea. In her book, their names have been changed and faces in photographs altered to shield their extended family in North Korea from retribution.

Ms. Lee says she is confident she hasn’t been identified by the regime. To go unnoticed during her escape to South Korea, she changed her name seven times, which inspired the title of her book.

To keep the spotlight on human-rights issues, Ms. Lee is collecting the stories of 10 North Korean women living in South Korea. “One of my big concerns,” she said, “is that people would stop thinking about the problems in North Korea after reading my book.”

More Books

Under The Same Sky

By Joseph Kim

On sale June 2

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Story: A homeless child in North Korea escapes to China and struggles to survive. He eventually reaches America, where he is now a college student.

A Thousand Miles to Freedom

By Eunsun Kim

On sale July 21, St. Martin’s Press

Story: An 11-year-old girl escapes North Korea after three members of her family die of starvation. After a nine-year journey she arrives in South Korea.

In Order to Live

By Yeonmi Park

On sale Sept. 29

Penguin Press

Story: A young North Korean woman escapes to South Korea through China’s underworld of smugglers and human traffickers and emerges as a human-rights activist.

A North Korean’s tale of defection

A handful of North Korean defectors are publishing their memoirs this summer. Among the harrowing accounts is ‘The Girl With Seven Names,’ by Hyeonseo Lee, who walked out of the country when she was 17